LOVECRAFTIAN EXISTENTIALISM - PART I

by Henrik Harksen © 2006

In HPL's letters, essays and sprinkled throughout his tales as well, we find references to his scientific outlook - he is, according to himself, a "mechanic materialist," a stout empiricist who wants the "straight dope of the clear-cut is or isn't proposition" (SL III, p. 299), and professess that he holds no belief in free will whatsoever. It is, then, quite surprising to notice that his stories - and, in fact, his letters and essays too, from time to time - are loaded with existential matters. After all, existentialism comes close to be the very anti-thesis to hardcore scientific materialism.

Does that mean that HPL is being wholesale inconsistent and in reality has no idea as to what to believe (despite his numerous utterances to the contrary)? Not at all. What we see in play here is simply a focus on two important aspects of the answers to HPL's own lifelong search, "What is anything?" One can be solved, he thinks, through science; and one can be solved by looking solely at human life itself, now that we are doomed (so to speak) to live it. It is the latter that centers on existential matters. Since existentialism didn't become a discipline in its own right until the arrival of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-80), after HPL's death, HPL had no way of knowing that he was in fact advocating, frequently, a sort of existentialism; his hardcore scientific outlook notwithstanding. It would have been interesting to hear HPL's response to Sartre's major philosophical work, Being and Nothing (published 1943).

What you are about to read is a sample presentation of the basic evidence - 'empirical evidence,' if you will - which shows that HPL dealt with truly existential matters. What I will not do here, however, is discuss where or wheter this particular type of 'existentialism' works in accordance with his otherwise stout, scientific outlook. That will have to wait till another, more thorough essay. Likewise, a more detailed presentation of HPL's argumentation will also have to wait.

Perhaps one of the reasons HPL fans and HPL scholars sometimes are surprised to hear that HPL can also correctly be called an existentialist is that so much in HPL's correspondance and essays is clearly scientifically oriented. The Dreamer from Providence is quite outspoken on that point. As a result, we all too soon take his own words to heart and have this as a 'filter' through which we read the rest of what he has written. This is pure speculation on my part, of course, but not an unlikely one, I think. However, if we leave aside that filter, if we for a moment step back into a kind of veil of ignorance, the indications are there - right in front of us. All one needs to do is read the texts with open eyes.

In that spirit, let's take a look at some quotes and themes:

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." ("Supernatural Horror in Literature," p. 82.) In existential terms, this kind of fear is referred to as 'Angst,' which is characterized exactly like HPL does it. Dating back to the so-called 'Founding Father of Existentialism,' Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55), Angst is a term which also forms the backbone of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900. Much admired by HPL), Sartre and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976); the latter two arguably being the only 'true' existentialists of the lot. It is an important term. It is not merely a fear - for fear always designates some kind of object for the feeling that is felt; be that a specific thing, creature or - more broadly - specific event or events. You can always single out what it is you fear. This you cannot do with Angst! The very notion of 'Angst' encompassess something which you cannot single out, something which you are nevertheless very frightened or horrified of; in other words: Angst is "fear of the unknown."

Notice also that in an utterance like this, HPL makes a point of tying Angst with what constitutes being a human being. This, too, would seem to indicate a strong existential foundation in HPL's thoughts.

On a symbolical level, HPL's so-called 'Dream Cycle stories' are strong indicators of existential features in HPL's thinking. (In truth, I suspect, features that are also evident in his more realistically founded, later tales.) The very idea of individuals going beyond the veil of common life to reach a richer existence seems well suited as a foundation for existentialism. I won't go into details here, but merely suggest that the Kierkegaardian spheres of existence that I outline in a minute seem to fit particular well with HPL's Dream stories. (A later essay will look into this.)

A story such as "The Tomb" (1917) also speaks of matters that can be seen in an existential light:

"all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them; but the prosaic materialism of the majority condemns as madness the flashes of super-sight which penetrate the common veil of obvious empiricism." (D, p. 3.)

More than simply being a surprising criticism of empiricism, this quote also indicates that it is really through our consciousness that the world comes alive to us. This can of course be interpreted as a kind of philosophical idealism - with subjectivism lurking right behind - but it can also be interpreted in a more existential light: that the world doesn't really exist until we create it. Because of what I am, the world exists. When HPL has his protagonist say that "all things appear as they do only by virtue of the delicate individual physical and mental media through which we are made conscious of them," (my italics) this could be a reasonable deduction.

On a similar note, this critique of "the majority" of mankind could parallel Kierkegaard's critique of "the common man/the crowd." To quote Kierkegaard on this issue: "a crowd in its very concept is the untruth, by reason of the fact that it renders the individual completely impenitent and irresponsible […]" (Kierkegaard, p. 340.) There is a striking similarity between this and the protagonist's sneering at "the common veil of obvious empiricism." Perhaps more so when taking into consideration Kierkegaard's famous characterization of mankind's life. I hardly scratch the surface of this interesting subject, but in short, Kierkegaard outlined three 'spheres of existence': 1. the aesthetic; 2. the ethical, and 3. the religious. All three are 'above' the crowd's way of living, insofar as they are all three to some extend are reactions against the blind doctrines etc. of the crowd. In that regard they all provide a sense of freedom.

In "The Tomb" what we see is a person who is in the first sphere of existence, the aesthetic. He sees the folly of the crowd ("the prosaic materialism of the majority") and distances himself from it. How does he do that? Not much different from Kierkegaard's description of the individual living the aestetic life, really. He is a person who is governed by his senses, impulses and emotions, and he transmutes his world into an imaginative realm. A realm without other measure sticks than those impulses and emotions; in a sense he is living a 'here and now only' life. Which, in turn, seperates him from what Kierkegaard refers to as the second and third sphere of existence. The protagonist doesn't want any kind of responsibility or connection between past, present, and future; fundamental characterizations of both the ethical and the religious life, according to Kierkegaard.

The astute reader will object that, surely, HPL is not ultimately arguing for the third sphere of existence - the religious. No, he isn't - and yet, perhaps he is. In an odd, sort-of way. Although in the case of HPL, the issue is not so much a matter of religion per se (which it is for Kierkegaard), but the sense of wonder and awe, and freedom from the strains of time, space and commonplace life that HPL always confessed a longing for. A feeling that is similar to, yet different from, a religious feeling. Says HPL elsewhere, when comparing his own feelings with those of religious people, "But the whole secret of the kick is that I know damn well it isn't so." (SL III, p. 140.) The core feeling is the same - since all people long for the same - but there is an important difference in that the religious, according to HPL, mistake the feeling of wonder etc. for being about some otherwordly God. What is really something inside mankind, something which is of vital importance to the very existence of each individual, is in the religious twisted into something outside mankind; outside the world.

[This essay will be extended frequently. Due to other work, I am forced to do it piece by piece. Henrik]

ABBREVIATIONS:

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Lovecraft, H. P. Selected Letters, Vol. III. Ed. by Derleth & Wandrei. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House Publishers. 1971.

- . "The Tomb." Dagon and Other Macabre Tales. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House Publishers, Inc. 1986.

- . "Supernatural Horror in Literature." Collected Essays, Vol. 2. Ed. by Joshi, S. T. New York, NY: Hippocampus Press. 2006.

Kierkegaard, Søren. The Point of View. Citation taken from Copleston, Frederick, A History of Philosophy, Vol. VII. New York, NY: Image. 1994.